


Good Boys and Bow Ties

by gnimaerd



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:21:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6168850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimaerd/pseuds/gnimaerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris West punches Barry Allen in the face and falls in love with him in exactly the same moment: the courtship of E2 WestAllen. (Contains some kink, because, um, it turns out that Iris bossing Barry around is super hot?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Boys and Bow Ties

**Author's Note:**

> If you like your Iris West extra Toppy then this is the fic for you, guys.

 

Some idiot tries to hold up Jitterbugs’ and a nineteen year old waitress named Iris West – who barely comes up to this guy’s chest – hurls herself at him, cracks him twice in the head with an ashtray and throws him clean over her shoulder. Keeps him pinned with some crazy arm thing until the cops arrive.

Barry Allen, who ducked inside only five minute earlier just to get out of the evening rain, decides he’s going to marry this girl.

Except he doesn’t know her name and it takes him six months of passing by outside Jitterbugs’ to get up the courage to go in and ask.

(Baby steps).

+++

Once he’s actually managed to talk to her, he discovers a few things.

They’re both at Central City U and the campus isn’t that far from Jitterbugs’, and it turns out that her dad is the guy who sings there, manages the band – so Barry comes back a few times, even though it’s really totally not his scene and he never feels cool enough to be in there. Iris talks to him, and the second time she’s not even taking his order.

They’re not in totally unrelated circles– some of her friends are his acquaintances and vice versa – and they both know Patty Spivot pretty well because she’s been his lab partner and lives down the hall from Iris in dorms.

But actually Iris doesn’t seem to have that many friends? Her dad’s a musician and she doesn’t seem to have a mom so she’s not like Barry, who’s never really had to worry about money. Iris mostly runs between class and shifts at Jitterbugs’, and it isn’t until Barry spots her in the campus gym that he realises where she got that crazy arm thing and all that upper body strength.

She’s on the women’s boxing team, and she must take all the martial arts and self-defence classes.

Barry’s only in the gym to use the bathroom. He’s never been in one before and the smell of the place alone kinda terrifies him. But there’s Iris in a boxing ring, pounding on some guy who must be her coach and –

Wow she’s really pretty. Especially when she screws up her face and punches that guy.

Barry kinda stands there for a hot minute watching the pull and flex of the lean muscle in her shoulders, and the way her face works and her brow furrows and her hair coming loose from its ponytail in soft curls against the nape of her neck.

She spits out her mouth guard and glances round, abruptly – and Barry finds himself caught in her gaze like an insect in amber, feels his mouth go dry, his heart-stutter stop in his chest.

He must be gaping at her. He must look like a creep. He must – she must think –

One corner of her mouth quirks in this shy little smile. Maybe in recognition or – maybe she’s being nice or –

And Barry feels all the blood in his body rush to his face and rubs the back of his neck, compulsively, and stutters and wants to say something suave and admiring but all that comes out is, “um – um –“ and then he has to get out of there really quickly or he might literally die.

She looked so good, hitting that guy, that’s the thing. That’s the real thing of it. Barry could watch her – tiny and precious and perfect – hitting guys in the face all day. Damn he’d let her hit him in the face. He’d let her do a lot of things.

But those are thoughts he shouldn’t be letting himself entertain, god if she knew she’d – at best she’d laugh. At worst… yeah, no, he doesn’t want to think about it. He’s never talked about that kind of thing with anyone, let alone a girl.

There’s no way Iris would want that, right?

+++

Iris takes one look at Barry Allen clutching his broken glasses and his bloody nose, sprawling on the ground with his hair coming out of its neat combed parting, and she wants to kiss his stupid face, immediately.

Which alarms her because she hardly knows this guy.

Also she’s just punched him in the face.

“What the hell, Allan?” She demands, “I had him!”

“S-sorry,” he stutters, thickly, around all the blood. “My – my nose is – ”

She doesn’t care how his nose is. Now she looks like an idiot because this nerd has gotten in the way of her fist and also he’s pretty and she hates it.

She rolls her eyes and strides off after the mugger she was chasing to perform a citizen’s arrest, leaving Barry Allen get his stupid limbs all back in the right order and onto his feet again. By the time she’s frog-marched the asshole who got Patty’s purse back out of the ally, with his arm twisted behind his back, her spare arm locked around his neck, Barry is sagging against a wall, still clutching his nose.

“I think he needs to go to the hospital,” Patty says, hovering.

“Fine, whatever, you take him,” Iris waves a hand, “I got this guy. Here’s your purse – you’re welcome.”

“God she’s terrifying,” Patty whispers to Barry, not quite as far out of earshot as she thinks she is.

“I know,” Barry replies – except that he doesn’t sound terrified at all. He sounds… awed.

Iris tries to ignore the weird flutter that gives her. Probably just adrenalin. Or indigestion.

+++  
  
Iris sees Barry in the diner next to campus the next day, with this huge black bruise blossoming across the centre of his face, flowering out from the dressing on his nose turning both his eyes black and – okay, now she feels a little bad.

He’s a great big pretty idiot who she inexplicably wants to kiss, but he probably didn’t deserve the full force of her right hook.

He’s trying to read a menu, but he can’t seem to wear his glasses properly so he’s holding them to peer through them, with some difficulty.

Iris sighs and taps him on the arm – to his credit, he doesn’t flinch back out of swinging range of her fist – and takes the menu.

“Whaddaya want? I’ll read it to you,” she scans down the page.

“I – just a slice of pie,” Barry nods, blinking at her through his poor swollen eyes.

“I’ll buy,” Iris puts her money down on the counter, briskly.

“Oh – no – you don’t have to – ”

“I’m buying, Allan.”

“’Kay,” he mumbles, glancing down and – Lord, is he blushing?

Oh god no, that’s making everything so much worse. Iris concentrates on ordering – two slices of pie. Strawberry and rhubarb with vanilla ice cream and brown sugar.

(Why did she even come in here when she saw him? Why come over here at all? When she could just – when she could just stare at the back of his head through the window like some creep –)

“Did I break it?” she asks, when they’re sitting in a booth, eating in only slightly strained silence.

“My nose?” Barry points at the dressed, “yeah, yeah you broke it pretty good. There’s like, bone fragments in there. It’s kind of amazing.”

Why in the hell does he sound so cheerful about it?

“Sorry,” she mutters, scraping at her plate with a spoon so she doesn’t stare at his adam’s apple bobbing, which for some reason has become really distracting.

“That’s okay,” he shrugs, “shouldn’t have got in your way. I saw you throw that guy over your shoulder that one time before – when he tried to take money out of the till in Jitterbugs’.”

Iris frowns. “You were there that night?”

“Yup,” he adjusts his tie, grins. “Never been in there before, but my mom’s always like – _try new things, Barry_! Turns out I got dinner and a show.”

He laughs, shortly, at his own dumb little joke and – she wants to pinch one of his ears or something. She thinks about how he looked last night, with blood running down his face and his big eyes staring at her and – those long lashes –

Oh god she could spread him on toast and eat him for breakfast.

Except she’s tiny, terrifying Iris West and most men run screaming at the sight of her and he’s being nice because he _is_ nice, and if he had half a clue that she’s currently picturing him naked and tied to her bed he’d probably pass out. And then run off and go date some girl like Patty Spivot.

And he’s also totally noticed her staring again, great, okay, she’s gonna stop now.

She goes back to concentrating on her plate, though she can feel him looking at her. His knee brushes hers under the table, just for a second, but she can’t tell if it’s deliberate or not.

Probably not, right?

Probably not.

+++

“Ow – ow!” His knuckles whiten as he grips the table whilst Iris peels the dressing off his broken nose – the swelling’s come down, but it needs changing and she caught him trying to do it himself in the library bathrooms.

“Hold still,” she keeps one firm hand on his jaw as she lifts the wadded cotton off his skin.

“Yeah – yes – s-sorry,” he flinches, biting his lip.

Iris tries not to notice his freckles, stood this close, up on her tip toes so she can reach him.

“Are you putting ice on this? You should probably be putting ice on this,” Iris frowns, critically, assessing the bruised skin, starting to go the colour of rotten fruit. His eyes aren’t black anymore, but the nose is still pretty busted looking.

(She doesn’t feel guilty. Really. Not a lot, anyway.)

“Yeah – yes, ma’am, sometimes,” he’s just blinking at her again and his eyes are inconveniently blue and clear without his glasses.  

 _Ma’am_. God. “C’mere,” Iris tugs him gently to the sink, runs a washcloth under the cold tap and then presses it to the bridge of his nose. He groans, softly, but doesn’t jerk his head away like he clearly wants to. She keeps one hand on his jaw and –

He’s not leaning into her touch, is he? That’s just – she’s making that up in her head, or something. Totally.

But because she’s there and because she might not ever get this chance again, she rubs her thumb against his jaw, just a little, just a bit, just to feel the fine, sturdy line of it and his sharp chin and soft, clean-shaven skin. He lets her, staring at her, whilst she holds the washcloth to his nose, getting water in his eyelashes.

And she might just – just – be tempted to lean forward a little bit and give him a kiss, just a little one, just quick and soft so if she doesn’t like it she can pretend it never happened – when someone’s coming into the bathroom and they have to stop because this must look completely weird.

Barry blushes brilliant scarlet and Iris drops her hand from his face and feels that thing in her chest flutter again.

+++  
  
Iris buys Barry coffee and pie a couple more times, because – well – she did break his nose pretty badly and he’s easy to find around the place so it’s okay to sidle up to him with something sweet and edible to give him like ‘hi, I’m that girl who punched you, I’m not that sorry but here’s pie’. He’s studying all the time though, in the library, in the diner, hell he even brings his freaking books to Jitterbugs’ and sits reading at the bar.

Nerd.

She sits next to him sometimes, whilst he’s eating, and watches his eyelashes and his adam’s apple.

Sometimes he notices her watching and his ears get pink, but he never says anything.

Then his stupid nose gets totally healed up and Iris runs out of excuses to buy him food and seriously contemplates whacking him in the back of the head with a two by four just to be able to feed him again. Maybe stroke his hair. Just a little.

“Are you seriously fantasizing about physically assaulting a guy just so you can take care of him afterwards?” Eddie asks, “because, if you’re wondering, that right there is why you scare guys off.”

“You aren’t scared of me,” Iris tosses her head.

“I’m a little scared of you,” Eddie grins at her.

“Well, Barry isn’t.”

“He’s braver than he looks.”

“Shut up, Thawne.”

She stomps off to the diner for lunch, and finds Barry there reading (nerd).

“You know you don’t have to keep buying me food,” Barry tells her, “I’m all better. And I get it, you’re sorry.”

“I never said I was sorry,” Iris slides into the booth opposite him, “Besides, this pie is for me.”

“You did say you were sorry once.”

“Yeah but only very quietly.”

He grins at her, and grabs a fork. “Can I have some?”

“Only if you’re good.”

“I’ll be the best,” he promises, and she watches him eat until his ears turn pink.

“You know, we could do this some place else,” he says, over the empty plate, some minutes later, whilst they’re both stirring left over cream and sugar around, delaying having to leave.  

“Yeah?” Iris doesn’t let herself look up, biting her lip.

“Yeah, you wanna – get dinner, some time?”

Iris continues to fiddle with her fork. “You asking me out, Allen?”

“I – ”

Iris risks a glance up and sees that he’s gone so pink his freckles might actually be on the verge of melting off his face. Damn.

“I – yeah – I’m,” he clears his throat, straightening up in his seat, “I’m asking you out. To dinner. With me. Like a date. I mean, not like a date – an actual date. A real one. With dinner.”

“Oh, well, in the case,” Iris sits back, admiring him, just a little. “Okay. You wanna come pick me up after class tonight?”

“Yes,” he nods, “yes, okay.”

+++

Barry feels like this was a terrible idea, immediately. He’s not even sure why he asked her – he certainly wasn’t expecting her to say yes.

And now he’s on a date with Iris West and _he’s had no time to prepare_. She’s so pretty in this neat yellow dress with her hair up in pin curls and her nails painted deep crimson like they were the night she broke his nose. And he’s… wishing he’d put on a nicer shirt this morning and maybe worn a tie and his new suspenders. The suspenders he has on today are frayed a little in the back – he’s hoping if he keeps his jacket on she won’t notice.

And he has no idea what to say.

He’s been trying all afternoon to come up with good topics for conversation – almost set the lab on fire because he wasn’t paying close enough attention. He had a list, at one point, and everything – but every time he looked at it it looked sillier and more laughable so he’d eventually screwed it up and thrown it away.

He kinda misses the list now.

And it starts to rain, because of course it does.

Still, he has a foldable umbrella in his purse (thank you, mom) and it’s small so Iris takes his arm so they can share it and – oh, okay, this isn’t so bad.

Well, it’s terrifying to have her stood so close to him, it’s making his heart race and his thoughts fall apart. But her hand’s warm where she slips it into the crook of his elbow and he has to remember to breathe properly whilst they walk but he is breathing – he’s surviving it – this moment – on a date with Iris West.

She glances up at him, just for a moment, from under her eyelashes, and he catches a flash of something that could almost be nervousness in her expression, and his chest flutters. He didn’t think she could get nervous about anything.

“I had all of this stuff to say,” he tells her, abruptly, “and now I’ve forgotten it all – is that weird?”

“What were you going to say?”

“I – I don’t know, it’s gone,” Barry shakes his head, “I think I was gonna ask you questions and be – you know. Charming and stuff.”

Iris laughs. “That’s nice. You should ask me questions anyway.”

“I can’t remember any of the ones I wanted to ask.”

“Well, you’re very clever, I’m sure you could think of some more,” she gives his ribs a gentle poke.

 _She thinks he’s clever_. Amazing.

“Well – well,” Barry struggles for a moment, “what if I asked about your – childhood?”

“Mom left when I was young, Daddy raised me by himself,” Iris shrugs, “no brothers or sisters. You?”

“Uh – same,” Barry swallows, “I mean – only child. My – my parents are both around, still. Sorry about your mom.”

Iris shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

The casual tone masks something, Barry suspects, watching the way she’s avoiding his gaze, glancing out at the rain from under the umbrella. But this is a date and he shouldn’t pry. Also he’s run out of things to say again – _think, think_!

“So you never saw me the night you – with that guy trying to rob the place? The first time I came into Jitterbugs?”

“Nope,” Iris shakes her head, her tone just a little teasing. “You’re so damn quiet you can be easy to miss sometimes, you know that? You gotta learn to make a little more commotion about the place. I remember the first time I did spot you, though.”

“Um – yeah?” Barry blinks at her.

Iris nods, eyes widening, comically serious. “So there’s this tall guy in glasses sitting at the bar, and all he’s ordering is sodawater and he has a book. In a jazz club. And I was like, _what kind of guy sits reading at a bar_?”

Barry feels his face flush, manages a small, sheepish smile at Iris’s teasing glance. “Um – the kind of guy who has a crush on one of the waitresses?”

“Oh, a crush, huh?” Iris tips her head to one side, “which one of the waitresses?”

“Uh – Sara,” he tells her, quickly, with a grin at Iris’s mock-outrage, “you know, she’s tiny and kinda frightening so – ”

“Yeah, sounds like just your type,” Iris rolls her eyes, mouth twitching.

And Barry’s still clean out of words, he has no idea what to say to her. It would be a bad idea to say what he’s actually thinking, right? He can’t say _you’re so lovely and so brilliant and please don’t work out what a mess I am and leave –_ Right? No, that’s a terrible idea, shut up Bartholomew.

 “You got some nerve, Barry Allen,” Iris pokes him in the ribs, harder this time – it almost hurts (he kinda wants her to keep doing it).

He rubs the spot she jabbed, can’t help a grin as she shakes her head at him. “Okay, you got me, I’m kidding.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, so, not Sara then?”

“No.”

Iris lofts one pointed eyebrow at him. “Hmm.”

“ _Hmmm_.”

+++

  
They end the night in some tiny jazz club where the singer is nowhere near as good as Iris’s father but where no one knows them.

Barry can’t dance but it doesn’t matter – he holds Iris’s hands and sways, and it feels good – sweet – somehow. His fingers are long and delicate looking, with funny little callouses near the tips (they’re from working the parts of his microscope all day, she finds out, later). Her hand is slight in his, but instead of trying to hold tight, he laces their fingers together, so she can hold his hand the way he’s holding hers.

It’s nice. No guy’s ever held her hand like that before.

Over the course of an hour, Iris migrates as close to his chest as she dares get. If he were a different sort of guy she’d have expected him to try something by now – dark club, nice music if you have no idea what decent blues sounds like – but Barry isn’t like that and the hand he puts on her waist shakes just a little.

The thing is she’s a little scared, too. Scared to push her luck, scared of what he thinks of her, and that scares her even more because she doesn’t get scared of a damn thing. Certainly not some dumb boy with pretty eyes and freckles and – and – glasses.

Barry looks down at her in his arms like he has absolutely no idea how she got there. But he doesn’t let go and Iris doesn’t want him to.

By the end of the night they’re the only ones left on the floor, and Iris could swear she can hear Barry’s heart beating through his ribs.

“Alright, lovebirds, get out,” one of the servers waves them off the floor, “go get a room.”

Barry stutters a nervous laugh and Iris gives him a quick, warm squeeze – they haven’t even kissed yet. And they’ve barely spoken in like an hour. Somehow everything had just gotten so distracting – the hand holding and the swaying and the smell of Barry’s aftershave and the feel of the fabric of his shirt under her fingers – they’ve run out of words. Now there are only sensations, nerve-wracking and sharp as the cold night air outside.

But something between them feels so sure, already. Like they’re on their way to something inexorable.  

It’s still raining. Barry pulls out the foldable umbrella again, and Iris loops her arm through his and smiles up at him, quick and soft, with the rain already beading silver pearls in his hair – his glasses have misted up and she giggles, takes them off him to clean them for him.  

“There,” she slides them back onto his nose, straightening one of his ears so the leg fits properly – he has to bend down to let her, but he doesn’t try to do it himself. “Now you’re perfect.”

His smile is hesitant, small, wondering.

So Iris has to kiss him – she has to – she has to kiss that smile. She has to kiss the way he’s looking at her, has to kiss his mouth whilst it’s getting wet with the rain, has to kiss him there in the street outside a crappy little jazz club in the part of town her dad is always telling her to stay away from. Iris kisses Barry with the rain muting the noise of the city at night all around them, and the umbrella clattering clumsily to the sidewalk when he drops it, and when she’s done, he’s still staring at her like he has no idea how she got there – like he has no idea how he got so lucky.

And Iris decides she’s never gonna let this guy go.

They walk all the way to the monorail service in silence, with nothing but the rain and their own breath for company, hands clutched together, tight and safe and warm.

+++

Their dates go like this:

They hold hands, they kiss, they hold each other tight in dark jazz clubs far away from Iris’s father. Iris listens to Barry’s heartbeat through his chest and sometimes Barry plucks up the courage to stroke her hair. Iris always smooths her hands down the long plane of his back, and feels him twitch under her palms.

Once, she untucks his shirt under the cover of the long shadows of one of their favourite haunts, just to see what he’ll do – she slides her hands in under the thin cotton, against his bare skin, and hears him suck in a deep breath of air and hold it. He’s so skinny she can feel his ribs and each knot of his spine. Iris walks her fingers up the vertebrae, imagines doing this when they both have significantly fewer clothes on and then has to take a deep breath of her own.

She fits the palms of her hands to either side of his ribcage, imagines about where his kidneys are, rubs her fingers in slow circles into his flesh – pressing, firm. In the dark he’s let his head drop to press against head temple, as Iris works his flesh, pushing against his heated skin like she’s moulding him into something. The music is sultry and warm and in the shadows Iris can touch Barry just as much as she wants, whilst his own hands stay steady on her waist, whilst he meekly submits to the exploration as if this were her due – as if his body was already hers for the possession.

Iris is trying not to think too far beyond the moments etched by her fingers into Barry’s back. If she thinks too far ahead she gets cloudy and full of things she can’t name: endless wanting things, cruel and tender at the same time. Cruel because it’s a devouring, destructive kind of hunger, and tender because the wanting seems to know how rare its object is, how special, how Barry must be savoured.  

But Iris can’t let herself think about it, it’s too big. So she only kneads at Barry’s skin under his shirt, and hungers, quietly, in his arms.

“Iris,” Barry’s voice carries a shake with it into her ear.

“Bear,” Iris murmurs back.

“I love you,” he whispers, so softly that if she wanted to Iris could pretend he’s said something else entirely.

But he hasn’t. Jesus Christ. What does she – how could she even –

Barry must sense her freezing up because he goes still too and then he’s pulling away from her, quickly, smiling and shaking his head and acting like nothing happened, suggesting it’s getting late and – oh no, no, she didn’t mean for this to be over it’s just –

But what comes out of her mouth when he suggests they go home is just “Okay, sure.” And she kisses him goodnight, at the monorail station and that’s it.

+++

Barry spends every hour of the next three days berating himself, too terrified to call Iris or even stop by Jitterbugs’.

What was he thinking? What in the hell – it’s been two months. He and Iris have, by some miracle,  developed a real sweet little thing between them, but it’s so fresh and new and how could he be so stupid as to blurt a thing like that, in public, in the middle of a date?

Of course it freaked her out. Of course she hasn’t called, of course she – jesus.

What was he thinking? He was thinking that he could stand to have her put her hands on him like she was that night for the rest of his life. Thinking he’d never felt anything like he was feeling in that moment before – her little hands pressing into his skin, her body up against his and his head buzzing with how completely glorious it was to be touched by Iris West like that. How he was the luckiest guy on the planet, how he never wanted this to end.

And then he’d told her he loved her, like an idiot.

Eddie invites him to a party at the end of the week, when he still hasn’t seen Iris. “She’ll be there,” Eddie says, just a little pointedly.

“I… don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Barry mutters, glancing down.

Eddie casts him a hard look. “Why are you avoiding her? She’s crazy about you, Barry, trust me, I’ve never seen her like this over any guy, and I should know.”

Eddie and Iris have known each other since kindergarten – apparently they tried dating in highschool but it seems to have ended over some incident with Iris hitting a bully and Eddie’s wounded pride. Now Barry has inherited this odd pseudo-brother because apparently when you date Iris you don’t just get her father looking at you all sideways, you get Eddie Thawne sizing you up on the regular. Luckily Eddie seems mostly to find Barry a favourable fellow, where Barry suspects that Joseph West’s evaluation of him is a little less kind.

“I…” Barry shakes his head, “I’m not avoiding I just – I have a lot of work and parties aren’t my thing, you know, kind of a quiet, in bed with a book by nine kind of a guy. Um. Next time?”

Eddie’s eyes narrow, but he nods again, curtly.

Barry spends that night in his dorm with a book feeling awful. He goes to the phone to call Iris twice and then stops himself – if she wanted to hear from him she’d have invited him to that party herself, right? Besides, college parties genuinely aren’t his scene, at all. The last time he was dumb enough to go to one he got stupid drunk on one cup of really disgusting beer, passed out on the front lawn of a frat house and woke up in nothing but his boots and boxers.

Never again.

He’ll call Iris in the morning. Or – no, in the afternoon, she might sleep in if she’s been at a party.

Maybe she’ll meet a guy there. A guy who’s, you know, not a total moron. Someone who’d be tough and cool like her. Maybe she’s met him already and they’re on some darkened stairwell and she’s putting her hands on him like she did Barry and –

Barry doesn’t like this mental image at all and puts it aside in a hurry.

God, why is he sat in here? The party’s only a couple of blocks away, in a frat house he knows at least by reputation – should he just –

He’s up and grabbing his coat before he can think too hard about it. He should just go and say hi. He won’t drink, he’ll put on his best tie and his new suspenders and he’ll probably be better put together than any of the other guys there – and he’ll be funny and kind and maybe if he’s very very lucky she’ll have totally forgotten him confessing undying love to her a week ago –

His hand is actually on the door of his dorm room when someone knocks on it.

Iris is standing in the corridor outside, looking so pretty Barry’s chest aches.

“Hi,” she says, smiling quick and small and oddly vulnerable, somehow. She’s wearing a soft blue dress and there’s this silver butterfly clasp in her hair and Barry could just lay down and die, he really could.

“Hi,” he manages, getting a firm grip on the doorframe until the urge to lay down and die recedes. “I – I was just heading to – that party at – ”

“Yeah, I just came from there,” Iris tells him.

“You did? Um,” Barry swallows down the dryness in his mouth, “I – why did you leave?”

Iris shrugs. “Guess I was just wondering where you were.”

“Here,” Barry offers, limply. “I’m here.”

“I see that.” She smiles and Barry finds himself laughing awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Um, do you wanna go back? Or – or come in? Or – ”

“I could come in.” Iris nods, and Barry steps back to let her past him, and closes the door behind her and then has to take a deep breath because she’s stood in his dorm looking the way she does, in the dim light of his reading lamp, in her pretty dress and –

“You don’t have a coat,” Barry blinks at her.

Iris pats her bare arms like she’s only just noticing. “Must have forgotten it.”

Forgot her coat, came all the way here without it – what does that mean?

“Are you cold?” Barry grabs a couple of mugs, “I could make tea – or coffee – warm you up – ”

That sounds like he’s suggesting something, God –

“Why haven’t you called?” Iris squares her shoulders as she asks him and, ah, okay, that’s what she came all the way over here without her coat to ask. “Eddie invited you to that party, I know he did, and you didn’t show up, and you haven’t called, so – I mean – I just expected you to be kinder about it if we were breaking up, that’s all.”

“Breaking up?” Barry blinks, “I – no – I’m not – I just thought – ” He’s an idiot. “I thought you wouldn’t want to hear from me. After I – after what I said.”

“Why?” Iris demands.

“Um,” Barry blinks, feeling his face growing hot. “I’m… kind of an idiot? Who says things like ‘I love you’ after like two months of dating? And I’m sorry, by the way, I know that was…”

Iris’s mouth quirks, but the look in her eye has softened some. “You don’t need to apologise, Barry.”

“I don’t?”

“Well. Not for that. For not calling me for a weak? Yeah, you should be making up for that at some point,” Iris arches a critical eyebrow at him, “just for future reference, don’t do that, don’t not call and get all scared and disappear at random, okay? You’ll worry a girl.”

“You didn’t call me either,” he points out, with a quick, shakey grin.

“It’s different for a girl!”

“How?”

“Shut up and apologise, Allen.”

There’s the Iris West he knows (and loves). “I’m sorry.”

“That’s better,” she gives his arm a little pat and Barry feels positively giddy. He might actually not have screwed everything up. It’s a miracle.

He sets the mugs down on the side. “Do you wanna go to that party? I put my best suspenders on.”

“I see that,” she gives one a gentle little tug and lets it slap back against his chest, not hard enough to hurt but – well. Barry’s brain kinda seizes up for a moment. “But… I think I like it better here with you.”

He’s the luckiest idiot on the planet. “Okay. Want me to make coffee?”

Iris bites her lip, and then shakes her head. And before Barry can ask what she’d like instead, she’s pushed him up against a wall to kiss him, and his mind goes to mush and it’s all he can do to stay standing and wrap his arms around her tight as he melts into her grasp.

+++

Barry Allen is so precious. Kind of dumb, for a genius, but precious – _precious_ – and Iris grips his jaw to hold him in place whilst she kisses him and he all but buckles in her grip. She’s pretty sure his knees are shaking. Hers might be too.

It was the blushing that did it. His ears got pink and he did that thing where he rubs his neck and Iris knew she was going to get this idiot naked just as quickly as she could.

And his new suspenders – Jesus.

Iris pulls Barry from the wall by his collar, and pushes him at the bed so that it hits the back of his knees and he sits down with a little stumble, and Iris climbs onto his lap so that her knees bracket his thighs and her skirts pool around them both. He smells so good and clean – Barry always smells pretty much like he just took a shower – Iris lets her face drop to his neck so she can inhale the scent on his skin and he lets out this breathy little gasp when she scrapes her teeth against his throat.

His arms settled around her waist, one hand rubbing lines up and down her back.

Iris leans back a little, so she can frame his dumb adorable face with her hands.

“Iris,” his voice is a little strangled, rough-edged, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

“Barry,” she replies, because she kinda knows what he means.

Gently, Iris lifts his glasses off his nose for him, folds them and puts them on his bedside table, then leans down to kiss him again, still cradling his jaw in the palms of her hands. Barry tips his head back and opens his mouth like he’s drinking something in, needy and soft and gasping.

He holds her close like he’s never dared to do before, arms tight around her, her torso flush against his, and Iris rolls her hips and he makes a muffled sound into the kiss, enough that Iris does it again, and then again, each movement drawing another desperately satisfying gasp of approval from his lips and –

“Iris,” his breaks the kiss with a groan.

“Barry,” she repeats, taking hold of his chin to look into his eyes. He blinks at her, long-eyelashes trembling.

“Lay back,” she pushes him and he goes, unresisting, as she tugs open his collar, pulls off his tie, unclips his suspenders and unbuttons the rest of his shirt to kiss the exposed skin – his hand’s still stroking up and down her back but he doesn’t try to undress her, just lays compliantly beneath her whilst Iris explores, and that suits iris just fine, damn.

He’s being so…. good.

That hungry hurting thing in Iris is awake and straining for release already – god she wants to… she wants to – she has a flash of him with his broken glasses and his broken nose and his big eyes and –

She bites just under Barry’s left ear, hard, and he yelps, squirming, and Iris sits up with a gasp.

“Sorry,” she covers her mouth, self-conscious, shaking her head – that was – she shouldn’t have done that. “I just – um – sorry I won’t – ”

“No, I didn’t – ” Barry’s shaking his head, prone under her on the bed, blinking up at her, “I didn’t mind it.”

He’s flushed, still, and he looks a mess with his hair mussed up and his shirt pulled open and the indentations from her teeth reddening on his neck, and Iris feels a deep, urgent need pooling under her abdomen, looking at him like that.

“Didn’t mind, or…” she licks her lips, still tasting him. “Did you like it? There’s a difference, you know, because – ”

“I liked it,” Barry cuts her off, and when Iris rolls her hips against him again she can feel exactly how much he liked it and – oh, god.

She is going to eat Barry Allen alive, and he’s going to love every minute of it.

 Without a word Iris shoves him back down on the mattress and sinks her teeth into his neck and Barry moans, loudly, his hands bunching in the skirts of her dress.

“Now,” Iris grasps his chin again, leaning over him so their noses almost touch, so she can feel his eyelashes trembling, “you be quiet, Barry Allen.”

“Yes ma’am,” he whispers.

“You be still and quiet for me and I will be so good to you you won’t walk straight for the next week,” she promises, feeling her tongue thicken with the words. The voice she uses isn’t quite her own: it’s coming from something dark, gleeful, warm and wicked, coiled in her abdomen where she’s never let it escape from before.

Barry’s pupils are blown wide, staring at her, his mouth flickers – a smile, quick and brilliant. “Yes ma’am.”

Iris kisses that smile, bites his lower lip until he gasps and bucks his hips and she slaps him, hard. “Told you to stay still.”

“S-sorry,” he looks so happy it’s unreal: giddy, like a little kid, and she’s cut his lip – from the bite or the slap she’s not sure – she wants to slap him again, she likes the mark it’s left on his cheek, she likes the way it made him gasp – god – no, she shouldn’t, that would be – or would it?

She kisses the handprint she’s left on him, for good measure, and then she starts unbuttoning his pants.

Iris wants Barry as naked as she can get him whilst still keeping the time spent getting him out of his clothes to a minimum, so his shirt comes off but his pants and boxers just get dragged down to his knees and she only pauses long enough to get out of her panties and slide a condom onto him before climbing on top of him in her dress.

Barry makes a choked little noise as she presses up against his cock – poor baby must be so hard it’s almost painful and the more Iris pinches and bites and scratches and slaps him the harder he gets. It’s making her ache in places that demand immediate satisfaction.

“Stay still,” she repeats, grabbing his wrists and pinning them over his head with one hand as she reaches under her skirt with the other.

Her dress is in the way so it takes a moment of somewhat undignified fumbling and Barry gasps and laughs and then – and then Iris sinks down onto his length and he arches off the bed, mouth dropping open in a silent, shaking groan.

Iris has to bite her lip to keep from crying out herself – not because she feels any particular need for restraint, but because she’s been treated to enough of her dorm-mates’ late night performances to know exactly how thin the walls in these buildings are. She’d rather not let everybody in the immediate vicinity know exactly what they’re doing in here, really, though at some point they’re gonna have to go do this somewhere she can scream – there’s no point making him stay quiet if she can’t make as much noise as she damn well likes just to tease him.

Iris grabs each of Barry’s hands, where they’re still pinned to the mattress over his head, and leans down over him, sighing at the heated, pressing fullness inside her. Barry is gasping, and Iris can feel every twitch and tremble of his hips as he tries – god he’s really trying, her good, sweet boy – to stay still.

She kisses him, and rocks back a little just to test the angle, and – yes, good – rocks forward again, and sucks on Barry’s bottom lip whilst he whimpers into her mouth. That warm, wicked heat in her belly won’t stay still, wants more and more, wants to – god she wants to _fuck him_ –

The thought sends a spark down her spine like lightening and she lets go of one of his hands to reach under her skirt, rubbing at herself, beginning to rock with more purpose, setting a rhythm that makes Barry shake and sets the bed squeaking.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she hisses, her teeth clenches, “god, oh my god – ”

“Iris,” he gasps, “please – ”

“Don’t you dare,” Iris pinches one of his nipples, twisting until he whines, high and pitiful, “not yet, you don’t get to come till after I do, you understand?”

“Y-yes ma’am, _yes_ – ”his voice trails off into another whimper and Iris loves the way he sounds so much, god, if she could she’d listen to him beg all day.

“Are you sorry?” She demands, picking up the pace, riding him hard enough that it almost hurts, “are you?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he gasps, “yes, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry – ”

“Do you love me?” Iris grasps his jaw to make him look at her, and she’s not sure where it’s coming from but all of a sudden she wants to hear him say it, she wants him to look her in the eyes just as he is right now, meek and helpless and raw, and hear him say it again.

“I love you,” he breathes, good as gold and meaning it, every word, his expression wanton and completely sincere, “I love you so much, I have never, ever felt this way about a girl, never ever, I love you, Iris, I love you – _I love you_ – ”

And Iris’s world goes white-hot and gold and she comes with a shaky, desperate cry, sitting bolt upright and then tumbling forward against his chest, riding him through the tumbling waves of sensation.

She kisses his neck and his jaw and his soft, bleeding mouth, suddenly full of aching tenderness. “Barry, Barry, oh – Barry – ”

“Iris,” he sounds pained, whimpering against her neck. “ _Please_.”

“Okay, okay, baby, go on,” she smooths his jaw, pressing her forehead to his temple, and he shakes apart a moment later as she rocks her hips and croons soft words into his ear.

Barry comes with a choked sounding sob into her neck, and Iris gives his ear one last gentle nip before letting herself slide off him, collapsing against his side.

For a moment there’s only the pooling stillness and their shakey breathing, as Iris gradually becomes aware of her surroundings again – of the coffee maker Barry put on before she shoved him up against the wall still humming listlessly in the corner, of the street noises outside, at one of their neighbours playing music above them. Barry’s still got his shoes on, his legs hanging limply over the edge of the bed.

He drags one of his hands from where she left them pressed over his head, to wipe his mouth, his eyes closed. Iris stares at him for a moment – reaches, tentatively and touches where she’s left a bite mark on one of his shoulders, tracing the outline of her teeth in his pale skin.

He cracks open one eye to look at her, dimly, for a moment. And then he grins at her, silent, sleepy and radiantly happy – and Iris has to laugh at that big, dopey smile.

She claps a hand to her mouth, unable to contain the giggle that bubbles up from her chest. “Hi,” she reaches, gently smoothing his hair, huddling close to his side, “Hi, sweetie. Hi. You okay?”

Barry nods, mumbling something inaudible and easing stiffly onto his side, turning into her embrace. Iris huddles up against his chest, kisses his nose, his brow. “You’re so precious,” she tells him, all aching sweetness now, hunger and hurt subsiding.

“That was…” he manages, between kisses.

Iris can feel herself shaking, a little – all the adrenalin leaching out of her system. “I’m sorry I was so – ”

“You really… don’t have to apologise,” Barry’s smile is rueful but warm, gazing up at her, “that was kind of amazing.”

He meets her eyes for a moment and Iris finds a self-conscious little gasp of laughter coming up from her chest – he grins back, his face flushed, his laughter stuttering – it’s like they have a secret now, between them.

“You are gonna be so marked up,” she touches another of the places she’s bitten him – but it only makes Barry smile.

“I know.”

Iris rests a hand on his cheek where she slapped him, the print of her palm fading.  “You really like this stuff? You’re into it?”

“You seemed pretty into it too.”

“Yeah, um,” Iris runs her fingers down his arm. “Yeah.”

He laughs again, pressing his forehead to hers. Iris smooths his hair, settles into his arms, and sets her mind on not moving for a good long time.

“We can do that again whenever you want,” Barry tells her, quietly. “Seriously. Whenever.”

“Don’t you put that idea into my head, Barry Allen. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Pretty sure I do, though,” Barry flashes her another sleepy smile.

+++  
  
“It’s a collar,” Iris tells him, holding it out across the bed.

Barry blinks at her – he’s been helping her unpack, on his knees on the floor. She’s sat on the opposite edge of the bed, twisting toward him to proffer it – heavy leather with a brass buckle and a little silver loop at the front.

Barry’s parents have helped him get a bigger place closer to campus than anywhere Iris can afford, it’s been a year, moving in with him feels like a good plan – and here she is offering him a collar over the bed that is now both of theirs. Because this is a thing they do now.

“Uh,” he blinks, swallows, feels his face get hot.

“I thought it was pretty,” Iris adds, casually, “but I didn’t get you a name tag, or anything. That’d be weird.”

And then she giggles and Barry has to prop his forehead against the mattress. “Yes, yeah, because the collar’s totally routine.”

“Well,” Iris taps him on the head, “it kinda is, for us.”

He sits up, grins at her, takes the collar and feels his heartbeat kick up against his chest; the last time she bought a toy it had involved several days of planned activities in a little ski cabin over the holidays and it had been _amazing_. But this doesn’t feel like a toy.

Iris pats the bed and Barry scrambles up next to her, leans a across to plant a gentle kiss on her shoulder – and she lifts his chin to press one to his mouth. They brush noses, hovering, close and quiet.

“I love you,” she tells him, softly. “I don’t say it often enough, do I?”

“I don’t need to hear it to know how you feel,” Barry promises, stroking her wrist – and it’s true. It’s never crossed his mind to doubt her. It’s there in the way she ran to hug him when he got back from that research trip to Star City last week, and it’s there in the way she reaches for his arm every time they step out together, and it’s there when she offers him a collar with a sly look in her eye and the promise of fun later. Iris is guarded and holds her emotions to her chest in exactly the way he doesn’t, and he loves that about her as much as he loves everything else. He can say it enough for both of them, that’s the thing (and he does, because she likes to hear it during the more adult of their adventures).

Iris cradles his jaw to kiss him again. Barry casts her a small, hopeful smile, then offers her the collar.

“You wanna put it on me?”

“Not yet,” she bites her lip. “Later.” He must look disappointed because she giggles. “We’re going out for dinner, Bear!”

“I know,” Barry feels his face get hot, “you got me all worked up, though.”

“Aw, baby,” Iris coos, softly, against his ear, in a voice that’s just a little closer to the one she uses in bed and – well that’s not helping. “You wanna play?”

Yes, yes, he suddenly very badly does, because they’ve moved in together and they have this whole big place to have fun in and she has just handed him an actual collar.

He grins at her, and she grins back, stroking his jaw.

“Not yet, okay, but I have something else for you. Come on. Stand up.”

Barry does so, obediently, watches as Iris retrieves something from another bag and holds it out to him – it looks like a strip of fabric, red, folded.

He frowns. “…what?”

“Here,” Iris steps into his personal space, tugging gently at his collar and pulling off his tie. “This is a bow tie.”

“I… oh,” Barry murmurs, squinting down as she arranges it for him, ties it, adjusts his collar again.

“I just figured, since a collar isn’t quite something you can wear in polite company,” Iris arches a mischievous eyebrow at him, “this still lets me do this.”

And she hooks a finger under the bow tie and yanks him forward a step and Barry – oh Barry kinda likes that.

Iris pops up on her toes and kisses him, soundly, one finger still tugging the bow tie. When she parts a little she’s breathless, her eyes sparkling. “Good?”

“Mmhm,” Barry nods, “yes ma’am.”

Iris laughs, then lets go of him, smoothing the collar. “It suits you.”

“Yeah,” Barry catches a glimpse of his own reflection in the mirror – he has her lipstick on his mouth, but that’s a pretty common occurrence these days. “I like it.”

And Iris kisses him again, a little deeper and – okay, they’re late for dinner. But he keeps the bow tie on the whole time.


End file.
